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New York court considers granting NYPD Cold War secrecy over alleged surveillance of Muslims

New York’s highest court will consider on Tuesday whether the New York Police Department can use a Cold War-era legal tactic to conceal information about whether it put Muslims under surveillance.

The Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the cases of two Muslims who say the NYPD overstepped its reach by responding to a 2012 public records request related to the surveillance by saying it could “neither confirm nor deny” the records even existed.

The lawsuits over the so-called Glomar response were prompted by a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning stories by AP that detailed how the NYPD searched for possible terrorists after 9/11, in part by infiltrating Muslim student groups and putting informants in mosques.